By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter

Proudly wearing the gold, silver and bronze medals around their necks, the South Korean delegation to the 28th Summer Olympic Games returned home Tuesday after concluding the two-week event in Athens, Greece.

With double-gold medallist archer Park Sung-hyun at the front carrying the national flag, a total of 163 athletes and support staff from 11 disciplines were greeted by cheering fans, friends and family members as they arrived at Incheon International Airport at 10:40 a.m.

``We achieved the top-10 spot in the medal standings thanks to the warm support from all the people of South Korea,’’ manager of the delegation Shin Bak-je was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency.

``We did our best and showed true sportsmanship throughout the Olympics,’’ he added.

Shin also added his own analysis on the performance of the athletes in Athens. ``Athletes did their share in archery, table tennis, wrestling and handball, but we’re not fully satisfied with taekwondo and judo while fencing was a failure,’’ he said.

``I also felt that we need more investment in swimming and athletics. We have to benchmark other country’s cases in Athens to develop those fields,’’ Shin added.

Lee Youn-taik, the president of the Korean Olympic Committee, also expressed concerns on taekwondo. ``The gap between Korea and other countries in taekwondo is reducing. Even Taiwan did better than us with two golds and one silver.’’

At the airport, four medallists who returned home last Thursday _ Lee Won-hee in men’s –73kg judo, Ryu Seung-min in men’s table tennis, Jang Mi-ran of the women’s +75kg weightlifting and Lee Bo-na from women’s trap shooting _ also joined others for the disbanding ceremony.

Among the crowd were some 20 students from gold medal winner Moon Dae-sung’s taekwondo school in Shihung, Kyonggi Province who welcomed their teacher with a banner. Also, bronze-medal winning gymnast Yang Tae-young, who was denied the gold medal due to a judging error in men’s all-around event, received one of the warmest greetings. Yang was supposed to return with the first group on Thursday, but stayed in Athens with his coach Lee Joo-hyung awaiting a decision from the Court of Arbitration of Sports (CAS) on his case. However, the CAS delayed its deliberation on Yang’s case to after the Olympics and Yang had to return home with the bronze medal.

``Considering there are only three school teams in Seoul, a bronze in gymnastics is very precious,’’ Yang’s father Kwan-choon was quoted as saying by Sports Seoul.

``But I felt resentment when I heard that Paul Hamm had said Tae-young is not even worth for the bronze,’’ he said about the gold medal winner of the United States. ``An athlete should have respect for other athletes, at least.’’

After the disbanding ceremony the officials and medallists visited Chongwadae and met president Roh Moo-hyun in the afternoon, for their last official program as the Olympic delegation.

indizio@koreatimes.co.kr